Bit by Bit
by Shades.AKA.ChildD
Summary: ANGST DAY: Danny starts to question the worth of his actions after a particularly difficult fight. Happy angst day! Rated for mentions of blood and a few 'damns' here and there. The format might be off, I'm sorry for that. Haven't been on here in a while.


Bit by Bit

By Child-Darkness (AKA: Shade)

(Author's Note: This one-shot is one of my entries for the Day of Angst. So, as a forewarning, no, there is no happy-go-lucky anything in here. Not a whit. So, enough of the shenanigans, onto the fic.)

The walls were closing in. They had been for a while now.

Day by day, brick by brick. Problem upon problem had started to stack, one on top of the other.

Someone getting hurt one time, getting detention yet again another moment. There wasn't any let up, no respite. Not anymore, at least. He couldn't even remember the last time he had slept without waking with a violent jolt, scared back into bleary-eyed awareness by yet another nightmare.

It was getting harder.

It was getting harder, trying to act like there was nothing wrong. Like everything was under control and that everything was fine.

It was getting even harder to lie.

But, what could he do? He was the hero, after all. The one who had taken it, upon his own shoulders, the responsibility of saving everyone. It just wouldn't do, asking for help. Not something self-proclaimed heroes do. Or can do, and not feel like a failure about it.

But it was so hard, keeping everything bottled up. Painful even.

Daniel Fenton knew that he was reaching not only an all time low, but also his limit, and that scared him. But, from where he was concerned, there wasn't much he could do about it now. The freefall had already begun.

After all, wasn't he the one that everyone else depended on?

The signs were subtle at first.

Danny didn't know whether to be proud of it or not, but he was sometimes thankful that he was getting better at hiding his own problems. Better to show a brave front that no one doubts in the least, than to come off as childish, or over emotional. Oh no, that wouldn't do. Wouldn't do at all.

Of course, that wasn't to say that he didn't slip up, every now and again. But that was reasonable, normal, even.

Normal. Danny didn't know what normal meant anymore. In all honesty, he had a hard time believing that 'Normal' ever existed for him. He never fit the profile for it, anyway…

But he was good at faking it, at least. If he acted a little bit more moody than usual, his parents would just chalk it up to being another one of those pesky teen things. If he had accidentally snapped at Sam or Tucker, which he made sure didn't happen often, he could just hide behind the 'not enough sleep' excuse, and they would understand. After getting their own digs against him, of course.

Naturally, as to be expected, he would always feel guilty for taking things out on them. His friends, the only two people who really understood anything. The two were there when it started. The only two people who really got him at all.

Or, at least did understand. Once.

But slowly but surely, as many things in Danny's life, things had started to change. Or maybe he himself had started to change, without realizing it.

Ether way, they were all drifting apart, bit by bit. Arguments grew more and more frequent, finding them parting ways a little bit quicker than usual. Sam and Tucker? They hadn't noticed. Not really.

But Danny had noticed. And it was killing him. Little by little…

"Just another thing to worry about…"

It was just another night of ghost hunting.

Alone.

It was 11:59pm. Definitely way past his curfew.

"But it was ether sneak out of the house and deal with it tonight, or clean up after the damn thing tomorrow."

Danny was grousing to himself. He supposed that he should have been a bit more concerned about it than he was, but he found that he couldn't really be bothered with it now.

He didn't want to bother Sam and Tucker tonight. Dragging one's best friends out after dark, making them deal with one's own problems wasn't the best way to remain in their good graces. Danny didn't want to end up treating them like sidekicks, or whatever the term was.

So he had gone off alone. Not necessarily the brightest thing he had ever done…

It had been a ghost that he hadn't been familiar with. Only vaguely resembling a humanoid in appearance, it had a bizarre fusion of serpentine and canine features, the most prominent of which being a wickedly curved, razor sharp set of claws, completed the hellish description.

The fight lasted a lot longer than Danny had hoped it would.

Danny had hoped that it wasn't as violent as it looked; that it was just lost, or even that it would wait until later to cause trouble.

But, as with most things in Danny had ever hoped for, it was not to be the case.

The ghost was as vicious and bloodthirsty as it looked. Refusing to listen to reason, it had lashed out, seeking to maim anything it had deemed a threat to it's own agenda.

Namely Danny himself…

Several, fairly large gashes now adorned Danny's thin torso, seeping both red blood and green ectoplasm in equal measure. The results of a two-hour fight. Thick, copious spatters of red and green, the size of half-dollars, decorated the pavement in strange arcs. The wounds themselves looked worse than they really were, but they were still heavy bleeders.

"_Just another thing to worry about…" _Danny muttered again, collapsing roughly onto his knees. It hurt to even breathe now, each inhale causing the wounds to open even more, a little at a time.

The Fenton Thermos fell away from limp, almost numb fingers, rolling a small distance away as the young hybrid held his sides, trying to ward off the invasive cold that pervaded his already chilled body. It caused the boy's body to shiver violently, as if freezing. Whether it was from his own ghost form's temperature or from blood loss, he didn't know.

The pain was getting worse now. That much he did know…

"_No use, no use staying out here. My job's done, I need to get back home…"_ Danny murmured, shakily getting back on his feet and into an unsteady hover, and retrieving the captured ghost. Choking back on a pained gasp…

He didn't remember how he got back.

Danny only remembered a few fleeting bits and pieces of the turbulent flight back home, still bleeding for the entire world to see. The last thing he did remember with any clarity was sending the violent specter from within the thermos back into the ghost zone, before literally staggering into his room and falling face first into his bed.

Only when he was sure that no one else was awake, he eased out of ghost mode, biting back a stifled cry of pain as a refreshed wave of pain burned through his body. His ghost form's ectoplasm, slowly repairing the damage, had healed what it could. Now he had to do the rest himself.

'Painful' was an understatement.

Danny hissed in pain as he slowly wound the bandages around the freshly sanitized wounds, binding them tightly. Disposing the bloodied medical wipes and other such evidence with a half-hearted ghost ray, Danny eased back on the bed, arms listlessly draped over his bandaged torso, glaring bitterly at the clock. Looking at the time, he cringed.

3:30am

So much for a good night sleep…

Danny snarled at the damn clock, grabbed it in a bloodied hand, and slammed it against the wall. He would have been grimly amused at the sight of the clock's inner working scattering away, leaving behind a shattered shell, if he wasn't in so much pain…

Danny was doubled over now, the wounds underneath the bandages raw and split open again. Tears fell silent but unchecked, coursing down his pale features. The pain was now tempered with an almost embittered realization:

"It's not worth it anymore…"

It was a horrible thing to think, and even worse to say aloud, but the hybrid took it in weary stride. Somewhere along the way, Danny lost his path in life. Repeated close calls and other such upheavals had dismantled his already shaky foundation, and left him freefalling alone.

He started to forget why he even cared at all.

The tears fell harder as the reality sunk in. Being what he was, a supposed hero to those who would rather see him dissected, was really all he had left. That and them…

His Family.

Taking another thing off the bed stand, Danny chuckled mirthlessly through his tears.

"Well, thanks for giving me a reason, a reason to keep going. Even if I don't see the point of it anymore, at least I still have a use to you…" Danny remarked sadly, a wan smile gracing his pale face as he addressed one of the only prized possessions he had.

It was a picture of his family…

FIN

(AN: A little late, but still for Angst Day. And in case anyone is wondering, yes, the picture that is mentioned is indeed the one from TUE. I figured that at least in the beginning, breakdowns like this would be fairly common for anyone in Danny's unique position. Hoped you enjoyed it.)


End file.
